Book Review: Earthrise by M. C. A. Hogarth (four stars)

Book Review: Earthrise (Her Instruments #1) by M. C. A. Hogarth (four stars)

“But still… an Eldritch? Slavers? I’m just a trader, not a hero. I don’t want anything to do with something this dangerous.” 

Excellent light science fiction with Eldritch. Elves in space? Why not, we’ve already got Amish vampires in space. And zombies. Not to mention aliens. Hogarth makes us want to believe.

“I wish I knew myself.” 

Hogarth builds a multi-species crew who often rub each other the wrong way. Introduction of a near-mythic character in the flesh knocks more than one of them into a new orbit.

“It’s not magic just because we can’t see it and we haven’t codified the math that explains it.” “He should have stayed out of my head.” “You should have stayed out of his.” 

Reese has more than her share of issues with family, ship, crew, and creditors. Will two successive jobs from mysterious benefactors cure her of reaching for the golden ring? Timely arrival of the “cavalry,” as the Alliance Navy is once referred to, is too convenient. Space opera-ish fun with a side of angst.

“Sometimes the things you fantasize about aren’t what you end up really wanting.” 

Book Review: Beren and Lúthien by J. R. R. Tolkien (Four Stars)

Book Review: Beren and Lúthien (Middle-Earth Universe) by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien

(Four Stars)

“He greatly regretted having used the word ‘Elves’, which has become ‘overloaded with regrettable tones’ that are ‘too much to overcome’. Years later, when the Elves of the Third Age had entered the history of Middle-earth, there was nothing ‘fairylike’, in the modern sense, about them.”

First published in 2017, long after the story of the title dyad appeared in Tolkien’s The Silmarillion in 1977, this volume explores the story of the story. Christopher Tolkien mines his father’s literary compost heap to dig out